Golden State Warriors Mailbag: Rest, Rotation, Speights

Apr 23, 2015; New Orleans, LA, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Shaun Livingston (34) shoots over New Orleans Pelicans forward

(44) during the second quarter in game three of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at the Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

Kerr’s playoff rotation so far has been pretty similar to the rotation in the regular season. He shortened it slightly, but the Warriors’ rotation in the regular season was already larger than most teams at 12 or so players that it’s now more similar to a typical team’s normal rotation of nine or 10 players.

In one of my previous Mailbag articles, I discussed that I thought the playoff rotation would shorten slightly, but not too much, and consist of the starters, Shaun Livingston, Iguodala, occasional minutes for Festus Ezeli, David Lee, and Speights, and some minutes for Leandro Barbosa.

That’s basically what the Warriors’ playoff rotation has been, except for Lee since he’s been injured. With an extra week of rest, I assume Lee will be healthy for the second round and could split some minutes with Speights at the backup power forward position (more on this on the next slide).

Besides that though, I assume the rotation will stay the same. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It doesn’t matter to Kerr if other playoff teams shorten their rotation to just seven or eight players. Kerr will play whoever he believes will give them the best chance to win and will do whatever he can to manage his players’ minutes as much as he can in the playoffs, meaning he could rely on the key bench players mentioned before to play more minutes if the Warriors build a big lead.

As the playoffs go on, there’s the possibility that players such as Ezeli, Lee, Speights, and Barbosa see a slight decline in minutes, but that would only be a minor adjustment. I see Iguodala and possibly Livingston playing more minutes as the playoffs go on though.

Next: Will Speights See Less Minutes in Second Round?